“He was verbally abused. They told him, ‘Get out of your wheelchair. There is nothing wrong with you, you can f****** walk,” he said.

Police in Bridgend have confirmed an incident has been reported to them and they have launched an investigation. It is understood that the investigating officers will be working closely with the force’s hate crime unit.

Tony said Nathan, 21, who is only able to crawl and has been in a wheelchair all his life, was found in tears outside the Two Brewers pub in Brackla, Bridgend, at around 7.30pm.

He praised pub staff and customers for comforting Nathan and chasing off the men who left him shaken up.

Tony claimed that during the verbal assault the men called Nathan “Simon Green”.

Fellow wheelchair user Simon Green is the chairman of the Bridgend Coalition of Disabled People and has faced similar taunts in the past.

In 2010, he took part in a BBC Panorama documentary about hate crime which secretly filmed people abusing Simon, who began using a wheelchair in 2004 when his Neurofibromatosis – a genetic condition that causes tumours to grow – worsened.

Simon said: “I was angry and upset to hear what had happened to Nathan, a young man who just wanted to go out and watch the Wales game. The fact that they used my name when verbally abusing him horrifies and upsets me even more.

“I don’t know if they mistook Nathan for me or were just repeating the language used by the men I secretly filmed in the Panorama documentary. But either way, it’s appalling and unforgivable and I hope they are brought to justice.

“What they did and the language they used towards Nathan is a criminal offence, it’s a disability hate crime and I will be urging the police to treat it as such. I urge anyone who was at the Two Brewers that night and witnessed the incident or who knows who these men were to report to the police.”

Tony, 57, who lives with Nathan and his family in Brackla, said: “Nathan was very, very upset and it upset everybody in the family.

“Everybody knows Nathan. Everybody I have spoken to is sickened. He didn’t deserve that.”

• Anyone with information is urged to contact South Wales Police on 101 or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 quoting the incident number: 1400439544.